Lem'i Atlı'nın Eserlerinde Müzik-edebiyat İlişkileri

Abstract

İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitiisû'nde hazırlamış olduğum Yüksek Lisans tezimde, Türk Mûsikîsi değerli şarkı bestekârlarından Lem'i Ath'nm 82'si aruz vezinli ve 14*ü hece vezinli olmak üzere toplam 96 adet eserinin edebî - estetik yönden tahlilleri yapılmıştır. Bu incelemede Lem'i Ath'nm Türk Dilini nasıl kullandığı, edebî - müzik kültürünü şarkılarına ne ölçüde yansıttığı araştırılmıştır. Tahlil sonucunda, bestekârımızın dili, edebî kültürü ve sanat gücüyle birlikte devrinin estetik anlayışına bağlılığı tespit edilmiştir. Bu vesîleyle, "sözlü mûsikîmizle edebi kültürümüzün içice olduğu" bir kere daha ispatlanmıştır. Böylece Lem'i Ath'nm bestekâr olarak Türk Mûsıkîsi'ndeki yeri, değeri ve önemi anlaşılmaktadır. Bunun yanında, TRT İstanbul Radyosunun 1989 tarihli repertuar kitapçığında yer almayan 18 farklı eser bulunmuş ve bunlar da aynı incelemeye alınmıştır. Bütün bestecüerimizin bu açıdan ele alınıp tahHl edilmesi, mûsikî sanatımızın yeterince aydınlatılarak sağlam temeller üzerine oturtulması ve mûsikîmiz için daha bilinçli bir gelecek hazırlanması bakımından büyük önem taşımaktadır.

In my Master dissertation submitted to the Institute of Social Sciences of Istanbul Technical University, a comprehensive analysis of totally 96 works onsisting of 82 prosodic and 14 syllabic metered works of Lem'i Atlı, one of the famous song composers of Turkish music, has carefully and precisely been carried out from the literary and esthetic points of view. Before I begin to explain the subject of my dissertation, I would like to look at Lemi Ath's life shortly. He was born in 1870 in Sultan Tepesi around Üsküdar. His father was Mr. Çerkez İbrahim Hakkı and his mother was Mrs. Dilber. Mr. İbrahim was a member of the religious tribe called Şizentu. Since this word means knight (rider) in Caucassian language, Mr. Lem'i has taken the surname ATLI (RIDER) in 1935. About a week after his birth, his mother died. The sister who is 17 years older than him has begun to look after Lem'i. Halit Lem'i was living with his father, sister and brother-in-law in a small mansion located in the opposite side of the Molla Hüsrev Medresseh (Religious School). In 1872 his father has died while he was only two years old. Mr.Lem'i, raised completely by his sister following his father's death, has educated the Tezgahçılar Primary School and then he was enrolled in the Fatih Military High School. While he was 14 years old, he met the greatest song composer Hacı Arif Bey (Mr. Hacı Arif) who attented a music meeting held in the mansion. The famous composer liked him very much by virtue of his good voice. After a while, he was subjected, by Hacı Arif Bey, to a aptitute test with the song "human yok, bozulmaz meclis-i meyhane-i aşkın" and with the accompaniment of Edhem Efendi in Santur. He was admired much. Until the death of Hacı Arif Bey, he benefitted from the famous composer. He married three times and divorced his three wifes. Even his old-age period, he got involved in many love affairs. In the last days of his life, mere was two persons that he liked and wanted to see. These persons were Selahattin Pınar and Mualla Gökçay. The love affairs of the composer who is a romantic and very sensitive man have inspired, as was the case in every artist, him while he was composing his songs. His songs such as "Bir kendi gibi zalimi sevmiş yoruyormuş", "Yine bir aşk-ı emel-sûz", "Yeter hicranlı sözler", "Esirindir benim gönlüm", "Gözlerim gözlerine hayrandır", "Nedir a sevdiğim, söyle bu halin" and "Hastayım yalnızım" have been composed with the inspiration of his love affairs. Mr.Lem'i has also met the ney player Hüseyin Dede and has learned much from him, too. He continued his music life by working with the artists such as the Tambura player Osman Pehlivan and Bimen Şen. Lem'i Atlı has been invited to nearly all music meetings held in the houses of the distinguished Istanbul families of the era. He has enjoyed a good reputation with his fine voice and was admired much. Since Lem'i Âtlı met the last-era composers of the classic school closely and especially since he selected the songs of Hacı Arif Bey among such composers, he is regarded as one of the last rings of the chain in Classic Turkish Music. As a matter of fact, it is impossible not to feel in bis songs the form perfection and attitude and style similarity of mis old music school. However, Lem'i Atlı has sometimes differed from this old school in terms of bom rhythm taste and melodic expression characteristic. Lemi Atlı has kept himself within the limits of the style prevailing in mat era. His works are very successful in terms of the melodic structure and the carefully-selected lyrics as well as the perfect integration of lyrics with the music. Among the features mat made the composer immortal are the strong structure and balance in his songs, the elegance in his style, the importance given to lyrics as well as the harmony thereof with the melody in terms of both prosody and meaning. Furthermore, nearly all of his songs have deep sensitivity, emotions and delicacy and these are expressed with an excellent art concept in his songs. VI Lem'i Atlı has struggled to make a living and. has suffered serious subsistence problems. He died at the age of 76 while he was composing a poem of Semih Rıfat, son of Refik Mümtaz Pasha, in the Suzinak Makam. The first two lines of the poem were as follows; "Seneler geçti, haber yok senden / kalmadı bende tahhammül cidden". With the death of Lem'i Atlı, the Turkish music has lost the last and most beloved composer of the classic school. At first I would like to express that the purpose of my dissertation is not to make an Edition Critic on Lem'i Atli's songs by taking into consideration his all songs. Since my real purpose is to bring the art concept of Lem'i Atlı to light, I have tried to gather his works to the extent that it is possible. I have found 96 songs and have examined the literary value and the musical esthetics of such songs with in the above definition of analysis. I have given the due care to every characteristic in detail and in this way I have tried to show the beauty of the songs and the artistic personality of Lem'i Atlı correctly. In doing this, I have assessed Lemi Atlı based on the esthetics concept prevailing in mat era (giving preference to the melody by observing meter) instead of the current prosody rules. Furthermore, 18 works of Mr.Lem'i Atlı, not included in the Repertory Booklet published by TRT Istanbul Radio on 1989, have been discovered and taken into consideration in the said study. Before I talk about the analysis made, I would like to remind the following saying of the Russian writer Puskin; "The goal of the critic is not to creat beauty but to judge on the created beauty and to introduce it to the readers, to assess the created work from new points of view and with new documents and to make the most true and correct assessment about the created work based on a clear and scientific expression." Music creates a specified culture and art by mixing with the literature. Art becomes more valuable and exalted as the result of the balanced harmony between such two fields (music and literature). Songs, which are one of the musical forms used along with our literature, have gained importance with the works by Haci Arif Bey and have gradually prevailed over other forms. Lem'i Atlı, a pupil of the greatest song composer Haci Arif Bey, is one of our composers who used the song form too much and in best way. vn What is Analysis? Analysis is an art branch that mades detailed assessments on a created artwork to express the meaning of such work by taking into consideration even the smallest elements. Analysis ascertains the conditions and contexts under which the artwork is created by the artist. Artists show a great interest in social events. And the social events occur as the result of human activities. Artists dont consider any event, any emotion and idea useless and therefore they dont ignore such event, emotions and ideas. The underlying elements of all social events are the oppressions caused by various emotions and ideas. For this reason, an artist must be capable of seeing and understanding such oppressions and of reflecting the various fluctuations of such oppressions in his/her own personality. This capability cannot be achieved by blindly depending on inspiration only. Art involves scienctific background. Artists must have such sciencetific background and must prove the same in his/her works and must be able to present his/her long-lasting/immortal works to the society. In order to be able to analyze and assess an artwork, one must know, within such artwork, the social events, all kinds of human emotions, ideas, considerations and psychology as well as the cultural conditions and etc. Artworks may reflect many points more than the creators expected. Different reviews are the explanations made from different points of view. If an artwork is subjected to various interpretations/reviews, such an artwork will be more valuable. The interpretations made in the analyses for the artwork may oftenly be very different, even more acceptable or pleasant from that of the artist. For this reason, it is said mat an analysis must ignore the artists' intention and must concentrate on the artists' artwork made with that intention. What is Musical Analysis ? A song or folk song is not consisting only of a framework called makam- rhythm-form. There are some language rules and other cultural materials that help make an artwork and create a beauty out of that song or folk song. Such materials must be used when required and within some specified measure and, what's more, in order of priority. The usage of such materials in mis sense determines the value judgments of the artwork created. Vlll For this reason, we need to know the ideas and materials by which the artistic works in our music are created. This need will explain the success secrets of the artwork to us. It will show the way leading towards the beautiful, good, proper and useful songs. Above all, the "measurements of the beautiful and perfect songs" will come to daylight. This will lead the composers of the new genaration to the true direction. That is to say, each artwork matured with the formula "attention-review- observation" must, when brought to light, obtain the opportunity to give account, in a mathematical terms, of its each melody, of its each emotion and idea and of its each point. It must be possible for the listeners to feel easily, when listening, the spiritual and artistic richness of the artist and to take pleasure in the artwork. The mass of listeners taking such a pleasure in the artwork may be a captive of the composer easily. However, such a captivity give an endless happiness to the listener. In the captivity of the artist's world, made out of the science and art, listeners will come closer to the art and their artistic taste will improve. In order to be able to achieve such a taste and level and also "in order to be able to feel all pleasure and excitement covered in a played artwork, even the smallest detail mustn't be ignored. Otherwise, the influence and excitement coming through that song to our spiritual world will consist only of the broken sound masses and of the vague nothingness". In order that a song may be beautiful and successful, that song must, according to the contemporary esthetics concept and prosody rules, take the lyrics as a starting point before composition is achieved. Each nuance, each profundity and each meaning in the lyrics must be taken into consideration. For this reason, the analysis of the musical artworks is started with the review (interpretation) of the lyrics from different points of view. The processing of the language materials in the song, namely all diction characteristics, is very important. Because no song must be allowed to destroy the beauty of the language for the sake of esthetic beauty. Therefore, the use of Turkish Language is ascertained in the artwork. The blending of the language (lyrics) with the tune, the success and the failure in this respect, is given special importance. In this way, many different aspects of the artwork are brought to daylight and a general judgment (synthesis) is achieved in the end. IX Consequently, musical works may be understood better thanks to the analyses to be made thereon. Such analyses will contribute to the making of a high- quality listener mass, to the making of conscious composers and of well-educated performers. I have selected some of the analyzed songs among the songs published by Şamlı İskender (1878-1960) under the title "Müntehabaf which is the oldest printed source that I managed to find. By keeping the principle "the most reliable source is the oldest one" on mind, I have taken such notes as a basis. Since some of notes obtained from other sources are very illegible and are full of Arabic letters, I have made additions to the back of the original notes as clear and in Latin letters. The subjects reviewed in other chapters are, in short, under the following headings; Meaning in the uses of meter-rhythm, the lyrics-ryhthm-makam relation in the songs, rhythm-syllable and word stress and the diction and meaning relations.... Studies of these kinds will bring the beauty materials of our artworks to daylight and will introduce them to a larger mass of listeners. Furthermore, such studies will create careful, patient, analyzing researchers whose approach to our musical world would be based on scientific ways. As the result of all such studies, a realistic history of music can be written. The analysis of our all composers within this context is of vital importance in order to be able to clarify Turkish Music sufficiently and to place the same on sound grounds and in order to be able to prepare a more conscious future for our music. I wish that mis study will contribute to our Turkish Music and that it will be useful for the following researchers